Coup Pour Coup by Marin Karmitz France, 1972, 90 minutes, digital projection, French with English subtitles
A small textile factory, like many others. At the beginning, women in a clothing or weaving workshop. Some of them are young, some of them are old and others are middle-aged; they come here, every day, to produce in the heat, forcing the pace, enduring their tiredness. As well as can be expected, each of them lives her life : 8 hours in the factory, a new workday begins at the way out : shopping, housework, children, husbands. New financial or affective concerns. Anyway, so many women’s life. But in the workshop, things are progressively changing. They less and less can stand to be oppressed : they sabotage machines, they stop working… The boss reacts quickly and roughly: agitators are fired. To obtain two womens reinstatement, they are all going to unite. Unite to find every kind of action which could make them attempt their goal. From union speech to the final sequestration they are going to manage a terrible fight.
Marin Karmitz, the producer, distributor and exhibitor, has during the last 30 years produced over 100 films and distributed close to 350 films. Jean-Luc Godard, Alain Resnais, Claude Chabrol, Gus Van Sant, Jonathan Nossiter, Ken Loach, Jacques Doillon, Pavel Lounguine, Hong Sang Soo, Michael Haneke, Raphaël Nadjari, Olivier Assayas. The films under his banner have been graced with an impressive list of awards: three Golden Palms at Cannes, three Golden Lions from the Venice Film Festival, a Golden Bear from the Berlin Film Festival, three Oscar nominations, 25 César Awards and over one hundred international film festival awards. Gus Van Sant’s Paranoid Park (60th Anniversary Award in Cannes 2007) and Olivier Assayas’ Summer Hours are among his recent productions. MK2 is currently in production with Abdellatif Kechiche’s Black Venus. –Photo credit Benoït Linero
